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The Bearded Delivery Service

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The Bearded Delivery Service

***

Charles couldn't help but laugh at himself, even with the tremendous amount of pain he was in. He had been a fool to believe he would escape his captivity without further injury to himself. His whole body was on fire. His throat burned for water. His muscles burned from holding himself up all day. His wrists burned from where the irons had dug into his skin. And his skin burned red from the fury of the sun. Charles now knew why she had cut open his shirt.

He had tried, though he had failed, to keep himself from crying out in pain. It had been that one, lonesome little cry that had called her to him. She had been watching him the whole day, circling like a bird overhead. She assured him that the pain would go away once he told her what she wanted to know. And he, in his delusion, told her everything. 

And he noticed how, instead of immediately giving the order for him to be let down, she ran to the helm and turned their heading north. How a smile now rested on her lips. And how she didn't spare him a second glance as he was hauled away to her quarters to be fixed up by Ralph.

How torturous it must be to be strung up so that all of your strength leaves you as you slowly dehydrate and your skin is burned to a  crisp. Surrounded by the largest body of water on earth, for as far as the eye can see, and yet, it can do nothing but cause more pain. How she had come upon the concept was unimaginable. 

Charles now lay in a lavish room. Dusty drapes hung pulled back from the large window, maps lay spread out across a large mahogany desk, and piles upon piles of letters covered every available surface. The room was, honestly, a mess. The bed in which he lay was heaped high with discordant downy pillows that had been, unquestionably, part of multiple loots. Outside the door, he heard the pirates, the sailors, going about their day to day tasks, talking and laughing. But above all, he heard things that were never meant for his ears. "What do you think tha General will do with tha Commander here, Bonsey?" A small voice asked as he stood in the shade of the poop deck, right in front of the captain's quarters. 

"I donno, Arthur. S'ppose maybe they migh' torture him fer more information, though I doubt tha'. They migh' keep him prisoner and hold him for ransom. Maybe even trade him back to tha Limeys an' Lobsterbacks. But I s'ppose we'll find out when we gets to Massachusetts." Everything seemed to click in Charles' head all of a sudden. Of course they were heading to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Washington was holed up in Newtowne, just miles away from Boston — British occupied Boston. There was no doubt in his mind that they weren't sailing down the coast at that very moment, mere miles from land. The cogs in his mind whirred as a plan of escape formed in minutes.

His plan was this, to sneak off the ship and swim to land, propelled by the tide that must be coming in. He would the commandeer a horse, in his Majesties name, and ride to Boston where he would raise an armada to capture the Drunken Monkey before they discovered that he had escaped. Now there was just the issue of being able to stand. 

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